


Good, Rare Things

by Frellywellies



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6051748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frellywellies/pseuds/Frellywellies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When they broke apart again, Mary offered no apology because she had not made an error." <br/>Anon on Tumblr requested a Phoster first kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good, Rare Things

The first time he kissed her (really kissed her, his narcotized fumblings notwithstanding) there was blood all over his hands. She could feel the cool wetness on her cheekbones, her ears and her throat as he withdrew his hands and she did not know if his breathless “I’m sorry” was for the kiss or for the red streaks that were undoubtedly all over her skin.

She would not have allowed it, had the boy died. How many times had she sat with him after a failed operation, hands clasped so tightly it was as though they were trying to pass through one another’s skins? The specter of gestures left unmade hung over those moments and lent a fervid kind of intensity to the physical affections they allowed themselves. Hands pressed together until their skin was bone-white with effort, a friendly hug of consolation that became so fierce that it was impossible to breathe. She would not have permitted a kiss then, not out of misery and defeat and not for simple comfort.

But tonight, they had saved him. The boy took a minie ball to the chest, piercing his lung. It was not just a fatal wound but a torturous one. He would die slowly, desperately trying to suck breath from the air while it whistled immediately out of the hole in his side. There was nothing to be done but bear witness to his misery.

Except that perhaps there was. It was a new technique that Dr. Foster had heard of only dimly, a sort of “patch” for the opening in the boy’s chest that would allow him to breathe almost normally. It was untried and there was no guarantee that it would offer him anything in way of relief but Mary had encouraged Jed to do the surgery. Anything would have been better than watching idly while the poor creature gasped and writhed all the way to his end.

And he did it. Once again, he had managed something that no other doctor in the hospital could have done, likely because most of them would not even have been willing to make the attempt. In her own small way, Mary had helped as well. She had held the patient still, talked gently to him as Jed completed the procedure.

Their first kiss would not taste of sorrow, but of joy. Of triumph.

Her hands were not clean either. She had handled the instruments and the dressings and they had left a similar sort of stain on her own fingers. She knew that she was probably ruining his white shirt when she put her hands on his shoulders and drew him into her again.

His kiss had been ebullient, almost an unintentional action. He had done similar things before in the daze of excitement after a successful surgery. Once, after saving a seventeen year old boy’s sole remaining eye, he had picked Mary up from the waist and twirled her like a child. Miss Hastings hadn’t stopped sniping about that one for weeks.

His retreat now and his apologies were similarly automatic. If she had withdrawn as well then the both of them might have returned to their separate rooms and never spoken of this lapse again. _If_ she had withdrawn.

When Mary pressed her mouth against his in return, she made very certain that her kiss was deliberate and unmistakable, a kind of declaration. When they broke apart again, Mary offered no apology because she had not made an error.

For a moment, they simply stared at one another. Mary’s breath sounded loud and impatient in her ears. She was shaking, she was sure of it. She could not tell which one of them was more surprised by her conduct.

Jed, however, was the first to move. Their third kiss and then their fourth followed in close succession and these kisses were not particularly delighted, rather they were seeking, desperate, almost _afraid_. It was as though at any moment she might vanish from underneath his hands.

After a moment of surprise, Mary rallied and responded to him, to his hands in her hair and the taste of him and the pressure of his body against hers.

Mary didn’t know how long they were locked together but it was the sound of clattering glass that broke the spell. Somehow, they had staggered halfway across the room to bump against a cabinet, setting a row of bottles twinkling against one another.

Coming back to herself, Mary was flushed and gasping. She felt the way she imagined one must feel the morning after a spectacular bout of drinking. How had her hair gotten unfixed from its position? Who had undone the top buttons of Jed’s shirt? Why was he perched now between her inexplicably opened legs, only a half-dozen layers of fabric between…well, between the two of them and a profound escalation of their current relationship.

Mary practically jumped backwards, throwing herself awkwardly into the cabinet again. Jed reached out as if to steady her but lowered his hands back to his sides almost immediately. She almost wished they had actually broken some of those bottles. At least then she would have something to do, something to look at, some appropriate task to busy herself. 

And then Jed began to laugh. It started first as a low chuckle, a sound he tried to muffle, but eventually he could no longer contain himself. He bent at the waist, resting his hands on his knees to steady himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, off of Mary’s puzzled look. “It’s just…I feel like I’m fifteen years old again. Sneaking away to meet with Elinor Haley by the river while everyone else was at dinner.”

“It seems you had an altogether more adventurous youth than I did,” Mary noted drily.

“Well, you didn’t know Elinor Haley.”

Mary tried unsuccessfully to tuck her hair back into its net only to have it uncoil heavily down her back. Jed reached out again, pausing a few inches from her head and looking to her for permission. Mary nodded slightly and he lifted the offending braid, curling it back up inside the net with tender care.

“I didn’t think you…” he trailed off, giving her a pleading look. Mary took his meaning. He had not believed that she would welcome his advances and, in truth, she had been ambivalent about the idea for some time. She had not come to Mansion House, after all, to forge this sort of relationship and certainly not with a man who already belonged to someone else.

In fact, after Gustav died, Mary had suspected that she had lost her opportunity to love another person in that way. It had taken her so long to find her husband and she could not imagine such a stroke of luck occurring twice in one lifetime. She had fully expected to spend the rest of her life directing her energies towards utility, pouring her fondness and affection into ideas rather than people. She had imagined for herself a sterile, industrious future and then she had come here, where there was such need, a need that threatened to consume her whole. It sometimes seemed that everything here was blood and death and suffering and sickness. _Almost_ everything.

“We don’t…win very often,” Mary tried to explain. “The war doesn’t bring us good things, most of the time. The surgery tonight, that was good. And so rare.”

She reached out for his hand, still bloody, but less so now having left some smeared on her skin. “I have begun to believe,” she said, turning his hand over in her own, “that it may be wise to accept the few kindnesses that this war offers to us.”

When she looked up at him he had such a soft expression of wonder on his face that she felt something lurch in her chest. He was thoroughly reordering her insides.

“Now, I realize that I am no Elinor Haley…” Mary cautioned, forcing a bit of lightness into her voice.

Jed laughed again and seemed glad for the opportunity to do so.“Shall I assure you now that you are much prettier than Elinor?”

Mary gave him an arch look. “Only if it is true.”

 

“You are much prettier than Elinor Haley.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “And infinitely dearer to me.”


End file.
